Mechanism for delivering recorded sheet film selected in indexing device to reproduction position

ABSTRACT

Mechanism for neatly delivering a recorded sheet film, which has been magnetically selected in the known film indexing device from a plurality of films each having magnetic material identification tag, with being suspended to the reproduction position. The mechanism comprises three means, the first of which is a pair of longitudinally extended members, each being adapted to be pivotally moved to engage with the free end of said tag to suspend the film in its operation position; the second means is a pair of slider members, each being adapted to be slidingly moved along a pivot of said longitudinal member with accompanying the film with its tag free end sliding along one side of said longitudinal member; and the third means is a transversely extended member having two projections at the opposite ends for engaging with each of the tag ends to receive the film from said slider member for the reproduction.

United States Patent Yamamoto et al.

11] 3,719,274 1 March 6, 1973 MECHANISM FOR DELIVERING RECORDED SHEET FILM SELECTED lN INDEXING DEVICE TO REPRODUCTION POSITION [75] Inventors: Masahiro Yamamoto, Tokyo; Takeo Iida, Matsudo, both of Japan [73] Assignee: Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha,

Osaka, Japan [22] Filed: July 1, 1971 [21] Appl. No.: 158,749

[51] Int. Cl. ..B07c

[58] Field of Search ..209/80.5, 1 10.5

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,576,256 4/l97l Tandeski ..209/80.5

3,595,388 7/1971 Castaldi ..209/80.5

3,625,358 12/1971 Duperron ..209/80.5

3,647,064 3/1972 Rosenburgh ..209/80.5

Primary Examiner-Allen N. Knowles Attorney-Stanley Wolder [5 7 ABSTRACT Mechanism for neatly delivering a recorded sheet film, which has been magnetically selected in the known film indexing device from a plurality of films each having magnetic material identification tag, with being suspended to the reproduction position. The mechanism comprises three means, the first of which is a pair of longitudinally extended members, each being adapted to be pivotally moved to engage with the free end of said tag to suspend the film in its operation position; the second means is a pair of slider members, each being adapted to be slidingly moved along a pivot of said longitudinal member with accompanying the film with its tag free end sliding along one side of said longitudinal member; and the third means is a transversely extended member having two projections at the opposite ends for engaging with each of the tag ends to receive the film from said slider member for the reproduction.

5 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures MECHANISM FOR DELIVERING RECORDED SHEET FILM SELECTED IN INDEXING DEVICE TO REPRODUCTION POSITION The invention relates to mechanical means for carrying and transferring the recorded sheet film as selected in the film indexing device, and more particularly to such mechanism for receiving the sheet film, which has been magnetically selected in the film indexing device, with being suspended to deliver to the reproduction position.

I-Iithertofore it has been proposed to index and select a desired one from a plurality of sheet films arranged side by side in a cassette, each of which film is provided with an identification tag made of magnetic material at the upper edge thereof, by magnetically attracting to suspend only said one film of which identification mark is in coincidence with the indication then given for indexing. Some type of devices for carrying out such magnetically indexing method have been actually provided but particular considerations are required for smooth and rapid operation to neatly receive from the indexing device and deliver to the position for reproducing the record on the sheet film in optical or in any other way.

The invention has an object to provide a simple mechanism comprising means for receiving the film magnetically selected and hung in the indexing device and means for receiving the film therefrom to transfer to the reproduction position and means for receiving the film therefrom to be subjected to the reproduction. According to the other aspect of the invention, it is to provide a magnetically film indexing device having means for neatly and effectively delivering the film to the reproduction position.

The invention shall be illustrated in more detail in connection with the accompanying drawings merely for the purpose of explaining but not for restricting thereto, in which FIG. 1 is a schematic front elevation of the known electromagnetically film indexing device, in which one sheet film is shown as being attracted, to which device the invention is applied,

FIG. 2 is a schematic front elevation of left half of said indexing device and of the left suspendor means of the invention wherein the selected film has been delivered from the indexing device to the suspendor means, and

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing essential members of the invention in the left half thereof wherein the selected film is shown as having been longitudinally transferred and received by means for vertical and transverse scanning of the film for the reproduction.

In FIG. 1, one of the known electromagnetically indexing devices for the sheet films is illustrated, to which the invention is to be applied. A plurality of sheet films 1, each of which is provided with an identification tag 2 of a magnetic material on the upper edge thereof, are arranged side by side and contained in a cassette 7 respectively in the upright position so as to put said tag on. The magnetic material tag 2 is formed with a plurality of notches 3 in the upper edge thereof in various ways so as to be distinguished from any of the others. Each of the tags 2 is provided further with two notches 4 and 5 in the upper edge and at opposite ends thereof, the configuration of the notches being of triangle in respect of the notch 4 and of rectangle with respect to the notch 5 in common to the all tags. Every tag 2 is further provided with transversely projecting shoulders 6 at the opposite ends in common to the all tags. The cassette 7 is adapted to be raised and lowered relative to the machine frame not shown as illustrated with an arrow by means of a lift or elevator means also not shown. A substantially rectangular casing 8 is fixed to the machine frame and provided with a plurality of rods 9 arranged under the bottom wall thereof in parallel to one another and respectively extending along the length of said casing bottom wall. Each of said rods 9 is held by one end of a concerning arm 10 respectively at the opposite ends thereof, the other end of which arm is pivoted 11 on each of the front and rear walls of the casing 8 so that the space distances between the adjacent parallel two rods may be varied by electrically driving means not shown and mounted in said casing 8 whereby any one combination of said varied spaces is in coincidence with any one of combinations of notches 3 variously formed in the tags 2. To said casing 8 is mounted an electromagnet 12 so as to exert its magnetic attraction force to the magnetic tags 2 of the sheet films 1 contained in the cassette 7 when said cassette is raised up to the uppermost position. The electromagnet 12 is preferably adapted to be energized and deenergized in relation with the vertical movement of the cassette 7 by means of micro-switch not shown.

In operation of such indexing device, firstly the arms 10 are actuated to be angularly moved a little or not moved to produce a predetermined pattern of the rods arrangement to be in coincidence with the predetermined pattern of the notches arrangement of the sheet film to be selected. It is appreciated that only one of the sheet films 1 having the tag 2 of which notches 3 are arranged in coincidence with the arrangement of the rods can be most strongly attracted by said electromagnet 12, while the other films are not subjected to not so strong attractive force due to incoincidence or incomplete coincidence of their tag notches with the rods then arranged. Thus when the cassette 7 is lowered, said one film only is left to be attractively suspended. The magnetic strength of the electromagnet 12 may be so determined that it can attract to suspend only one of the films completely engaged with the selector rods against the sheet film gravity but can not attract so strong to suspend the other or that it is made so strong in the first stage to suspend the all films and then made weaker so as to suspend said one film only.

In FIG. 2, there is shown a part of the mechanism according to invention. A film suspendor generally designated by a numeral FIG. 13 comprises a pair of end plates 13a and a longitudinally extending plate 13b of which one side is flanged upwardly as shown by 13c so that said end plates 13a are fixed respectively on the opposite ends of said longitudinal plate 13b. This assembly 13 is journalled 14 at the end plates 13a to be angularly moved from the position as illustrated in phantom lines to the other position as illustrated in solid lines respectively in FIG. 2. In the latter position said suspendor 13 may about on the shoulder 6 of the sheet film tag 2 with the flange portion when the electromagnet 12 is deenergized to release the film l. The angular movement of said suspendor 13 is preferably related with the vertical movement of the cassette 7 and actuated by means of a longitudinally extending rod which is driven for instance by means of a solenoid means not shown.

In FIG. 3 showing the perspective view of the main parts of the left half of the invention .of which right half is substantially same and omitted to show, there is a pair of end plates 16 which are fixed to the not shown machine frame and have said shaft 14 extending therebetween and journalled thereby. The plates 16 have a bar 17 extending also therebetween and in parallel to said shaft 14. A slider member 19 of substantially inverse U-shape in the cross-section, each of the downwardly bent flanges of which has a hole for said bar 17 extending therethrough and a notch for said pivot bar 14 extending therethrough, is mounted to be slidingly moved along said two bars. Said slider member 19 has a carrier 18 fixedly mounted thereon, which carrier 18 has a transversely extending plate portion 18a and downwardly bent flange portion 18b which is arranged in parallel to the upwardly bent flange 13b of the suspendor member 13 with a little space therebetween. The flange 18b is rearwardly extended to form a projection portion 18c to abut on the outwardly projected end 6 of the film tag 2. The carrier member 18 is fixed to a cable 20 at the other end 18d opposite to said flange 18b, which cable is extended over a pair of pulleys 21 to be driven. When driving said pulleys, thus, the carrier assembly 18, 19 is longitudinally moved along said bars 14 and 17, which movement is preferably related with the vertical movement of the cassette 7. In parallel to the plane of the film 1 and consequently transversely to the length of the suspendor 13 or to the movement direction for the carrier 18, there is provided a film transporting means designated generally by a numeral FIG. 22 for receiving the film 1 from said carrier 18 and adapted to be transversely and vertically moved for scanning the film to be optically projected or copied. The transporting assembly 22 consists substantially of a transversely long plate extending over the width of the film 1, which plate has a lever 26 pivoted 27 thereon at the vicinity of the plate left end. The lever 26 has forwardly bent flange 26a at one end thereof, which flange 26a has a notch at the root thereof for holding the shouldered projection 6 of the film tag 2 and the upper edge gradually slanted downwardly for facilitating to receive the film 1 from the carrier 18. The lever 26 has a tail portion 26b at the other end so as to abut on a stopper pin 32 planted on said transversely long plate, and a spring 31 for normally urging said lever 26 to sit on said pin 32 at the tail end 26b and for yielding when receiving the film l. The transverse plate is provided further with a lever pivoted on a pin 24 as planted on said plate, which lever 25 has a film positioning pin 23 on the left arm to be engaged with the notch 5 of the film tag 2. For facilitating the engagement when receiving the film 1, it is preferable to provide-a spring 28 on the pin 23 and a spring 29 for urging one end of the lever 25 so that the other end thereof normally sits on a pin 30 planted on the long plate. On the right hand of the transversely long plate there are provided another positioning pin to be engaged with the notch 4 of the film tag 2 and another lever for engaging with the right shouldered projection 6 of the film tag 2, which right half is omitted as referred to above for simplification of the drawing.

In operation of the mechanism of the construction and arrangement as explained in the above, when lowering the cassette 7 only one film l is attracted to be suspended by the electromagnet 12 of the indexing device, then said magnet is deenergized in synchronism with said cassette lowering to release said film 1, which is hung by a pair of suspendors 13 having been angularly moved into the position shown by solid lines in FIG. 2 by means of the solenoid means actuated also synchronized with the cassette lowering. At this moment the film 1 has not yet been received by the transporting member 22 as shown in FIG. 3 but suspended by the upward flange at the more forward portion thereon, when the carrier assembly 18, 19 occupies the most forward position along the guide rails 14, 17 so that further lowering of the cassette 7 synchronizedly causes the rotation of the pulley 21 and consequently the longitudinal movement of the carrier assembly 18, 19 to push the film l with engagement of the projection 18b with the shouldered projection 6 toward the transporting assembly 22. When the cassette 7 is lowered down to the lowermost position, then the carrier assembly 18,19 occupies the rearmost position. Just before that, the shouldered projection 6 of the film tag 2 is derailed from the flange 130 on to the slanted upper edge of the forwardly projected flange 26a of the transmitting assembly 22. With aid of yielding of the lever 26 in clockwise direction, the shouldered projection 6 of the film tag 2 runs easily on the slanted upper edge of the flange 26a into the notch formed at the root thereof. Concurrently the positioning pin 23 engages with the notch 5 of the film tag 2 so as to suspend the film correctly positioned. The film thus received and held by the transporting member assembly 22 may be moved vertically and transversely to be scanned for the reproduction.

What is claimed is:

l. A mechanism for receiving a recorded sheet film from a film indexing device which includes a vertically movable cassette containing a plurality of recorded sheet films having coded tags of magnetic material along their upper borders and outwardly extending shouldered projections and arranged side by side and in the upright position and means for electromagnetically indexing the tag of a preselected film and attracting and suspending said preselected film when said cassette is raised to uppermost position, and for delivering said preselected film to a reproduction position, said mechanism comprising first means for receiving the magnetically attracted film from the indexing device, said first means being angularly movable about an axis between a retracted normal position and an advanced operable position in engagement with each of said film opposite shouldered projections formed at the opposite ends of said film tag to suspend said preselected film when the cassette is lowered and said preselected film is magnetically released, second means for transporting said film suspended by the shouldered projections in a direction normal to the plane of the film, said second means being slideably movable in synchronis'm with further lowering of said cassette about said axis to bring said film to said reproduction position, and third means for receiving said film from said second means and for suspending said film by said shouldered projections in said reproduction position.

2. The mechanism of claim 1, wherein said first means comprises a pair of longitudinally extending plate members, each of which is arranged in a direction normal to the film plane and pivoted for the angular movement about said axis so as to engage in said advanced position thereof one of said shouldered projections of said preselected film tag for suspending the film at the free longitudinal side thereof, said second means comprises a pair of slider members, each of which is slideably movable along said pivot axis with the shouldered projection of the preselected film being slideable along the free side of said longitudinal plate, and said third means comprises a transversely extending plate which has two projections at the opposite ends thereof engageable with each of the film tag end projections to receive the film from said slider members.

3. The mechanism of claim 2, including a pair of pins located on said transverse plate member, said film tag being provided with two notches in positions corresponding to that of said pins for correct positioning of said film.

4. The mechanism of claim 2, wherein said longitudinal plate member includes has an upwardly bent flange along the free side thereof, said slide member includes a downwardly bent flange parallel to said longitudinal plate flange and having a tail projection engageable with a film tag projection, and including a guide bar parallel to said axis and mounted on said longitudinal plate member, said slide member slideably engaging and being movable along said bar with its flange tail projection being engageable with said film tag.

5. The mechanism of claim 4, including levers pivotly mounted on said transverse plate, each of said projections of the transverse plate being defined by a forwardly projecting arm on a corresponding lever, said arm having its upper edge gradually downwardly inclined toward the free end thereof and a notch at the base thereof so that the film tag projection is derailed from the upwardly bent flange of the longitudinal member to ride on to said inclined upper edge of a corresponding arm when said slider member approaches the rearmost position of its longitudinal movement and finally received by the transverse plate in said notch of the forwardly projecting arm when said slider member is moved to the rearmost position. 

1. A mechanism for receiving a recorded sheet film from a film indexing device which includes a vertically movable cassette containing a plurality of recorded sheet films having coded tags of magnetic material along their upper borders and outwardly extending shouldered projections and arranged side by side and in the upright position and means for electromagnetically indexing the tag of a preselected film and attracting and suspending said preselected film when said cassette is raised to uppermost position, and for delivering said preselected film to a reproduction position, said mechanism comprising first means for receiving the magnetically attracted film from the indexing device, said first means being angularly movable about an axis between a retracted normal position and an advanced operable position in engagement with each of said film opposite shouldered projections formed at the opposite ends of said film tag to suspend said preselected film when the cassette is lowered and said preselected film is magnetically released, second means for transporting said film suspended by the shouldered projections in a direction normal to the plane of the film, said second means being slideably movable in synchronism with further lowering of said cassette about said axis to bring said film to said reproduction position, and third means for receiving said film from said second means and for suspending said film by said shouldered projections in said reproduction position.
 1. A mechanism for receiving a recorded sheet film from a film indexing device which includes a vertically movable cassette containing a plurality of recorded sheet films having coded tags of magnetic material along their upper borders and outwardly extending shouldered projections and arranged side by side and in the upright position and means for electromagnetically indexing the tag of a preselected film and attracting and suspending said preselected film when said cassette is raised to uppermost position, and for delivering said preselected film to a reproduction position, said mechanism comprising first means for receiving the magnetically attracted film from the indexing device, said first means being angularly movable about an axis between a retracted normal position and an advanced operable position in engagement with each of said film opposite shouldered projections formed at the opposite ends of said film tag to suspend said preselected film when the cassette is lowered and said preselected film is magnetically released, second means for transporting said film suspended by the shouldered projections in a direction normal to the plane of the film, said second means being slideably movable in synchronism with further lowering of said cassette about said axis to bring said film to said reproduction position, and third means for receiving said film from said second means and for suspending said film by said shouldered projections in said reproduction position.
 2. The mechanism of claim 1, wherein said first means comprises a pair of longitudinally extending plate members, each of which is arranged in a direction normal to the film plane and pivoted for the angular movement about said axis so as to engage in said advanced position thereof one of said shouldered projections of said preselected film tag for suspending the film at the free longitudinal side thereof, said second means comprises a pair of slider members, each of which is slideably movable along said pivot axis with the shouldered projection of the preselected film being slideable along the free side of said longitudinal plate, and said third means comprises a transversely extending plate which has two projections at the opposite ends thereof engageable with each of the film tag end projections to receive the film from said slider members.
 3. The mechanism of claim 2, including a pair of pins located on said transverse plate member, said film tag being provided with two notches in positions corresponding to that of said pins for correct positioning of said film.
 4. The mechanism of claim 2, wherein said longitudinal plate member includes has an upwardly bent flange along the free side thereof, said slide member includes a downwardly bent flange parallel to said longitudinal plate flange and having a tail projection engageable with a film tag projection, and including a guide bar parallel to said axis and mounted on said longitudinal plate member, said slide member slideably engaging and being movable along said bar with its flange tail projection being engageable with said film tag. 